Non-invasive assessment of liver fat by crawling wave dispersion

Abstract

Using a modified ultrasound device, crawling waves are applied to the liver over a range of shear wave frequencies. Dispersion measurements are obtained that reflect tissue viscosity and these correlate with the degree of steatosis. A device for the process has an actuator on either side of the ultrasound transducer to apply shear waves, which interfere to produce the crawling waves.

Description

REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]The present application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61 / 487,025, filed May 17, 2011, whose disclosure is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety into the present disclosure.STATEMENT OF GOVERNMENT INTEREST[0002]This invention was made with government support under Grant Nos. 5 ROI AG016317 and 5 RO1AG29804 awarded by National Institutes of Health. The government has certain rights in the invention.FIELD OF THE INVENTION[0003]The present invention is directed to assessment of liver fat and more particularly to non-invasive assessment of liver fat, e.g., for diagnostic purposes or to track changes over time in response to therapy or progression of disease.DESCRIPTION OF RELATED ART[0004]There is growing concern about nonalcoholic fatty liver disease (NAFLD), a major cause of chronic liver disease. The most serious manifestation, nonalcoholic steatohepatitis (NASH), is an increasingly common cause of end-stage liv...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0012]An ultrasound based approach to measuring steatosis represents a profound advance, as it promises to be safe, cost effective, objective, and expedient. Having such a tool available for animal models, and ultimately for routine clinical use, will have a major impact on the pace of fatty liver disease research and assessment of treatments delivered to patients suffering from the metabolic syndrome.

[0013]The p...

Problems solved by technology

Although the risk of bleeding post procedure is low and the risk of mortality is estimated to be between 0.01% and 0.1%, biopsy is not always logistically possible (especially in an organ donation setting), and the small amount of tissue procured during biopsy may not reflect the global degree of fatty infiltration.

Furthermore, liver biopsies are disliked by patients and are sometimes misinterpreted due to processing artifacts or pathologist's error.

However, this method cannot measure steatosis when the output is a single “stiffness” estimate.

In fact, steatosis confounds shear wave...

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